But I’ve had some observations, where I myself wonder at factors that make or break a toyline…at least for me.

#1 – If there are only a few figures constantly on the pegs with no true assortment (i.e. only 2 figures out of a 6-figure wave and the other 4 are never present), that would suggest TO ME that the stores would see that as a line not selling. Maybe those other 4 figures fly off the pegs…but especially if stock is automated, the sale of whatever instances of the other 4 figures may not be enough to trigger a reorder…and the lack of sales on the 2 most common figures everyone that wants ’em already has might suggest no one is interested (when it’s actually that no one is interested IN THE PEG-WARMERS).

#2 – Ten years ago, I was buying the 6″ Marvel Legends–large, hyper-articulated figures with cool packaging including a comic book–for $6-$8 apiece. I know prices go up, the cost of materials has gone up, etc. But $9.99 for a 3.75″ figure nowadays? HARDLY appealing, especially for the vast majority of the figures out there. I know I personally would prefer less articulation for cheaper figures. The Marvel Universe line, Avengers movie tie-in figures, Amazing Spider-Man movie tie-in figures, and I think the Iron Man 3 figures run $9.99 or so. These days I’d rather pay a couple dollars more for a Lego set with a mini-figure and something to build (and some of the $10 Lego sets are about the same SIZE or bigger than these 3.75″ figures).

#3 – I don’t want six different costumes for Spider-Man, or 11 different costumes for Batman or 17 different armors for Iron Man. Yeah, the hero’s name is in the films’ titles…but darnit, I’m NOT looking for umpteen variations on the hero. I want more variation in there being a bunch of different characters that are available.

#4 – I don’t want to have to “chase” “basic” figures. Take a character and their standard costume, make the costume a different color and pack that as a “ratioed variant” if you must. But don’t make the CHARACTER itself a “chase figure.” Don’t short-pack certain characters likely to be popular while over-packing other characters. If there are 6 figures in the wave, pack them equally.

#5 – Well, when I started typing I had more than 4 points. Perhaps a follow-up post will finish things off when they come back to me.

Final for now – When a store is obviously over-stocked on what seems to be massive quantities of the same figure and “clearance” is less than 15% “off” (less than 50, even)…I’m probably still not gonna buy, where 50% off I might give in.

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[…] Of course, I was immediately disappointed at the larger size of these figures–I’ve come to MUCH prefer the 3.75-inch variety, and to this day have still never found any news or anything about the official cancellation of the Infinite Heroes line (nor the reasoning why it went away…though I have some ideas, as listed in a post last Friday). […]